Product Description

A FASCINATING INVESTIGATION OF HOW WE NAVIGATE THE PHYSICAL WORLD, "INNER NAVIGATION" IS A LIVELY, ENGAGING ACCOUNT OF SUBCONSCIOUS MAPMAKING. Why are we so often disoriented when we come up from the subway? Do we really walk in circles when we lose our bearings in the wilderness? How -- and why -- do we get lost at all? In this surprising, stimulating book, Erik Jonsson, a Swedish-born engineer who has spent a lifetime exploring navigation over every terrain, from the crowded cities of Europe to the emptiness of the desert, gives readers extraordinary new insights into the human way-finding system. Written for the nonscientist, "Inner Navigation" explains the astonishing array of physical and psychological cues the brain uses to situate us in space and build its "cognitive maps" -- the subconscious maps it employs to organize landmarks. Humans, Jonsson explains, also possess an intuitive direction frame -- an internal compass -- that keeps these maps oriented (when it functions properly) and a dead-reckoning system that constantly updates our location on the map as we move through the world. Even the most cynical city-dweller will be amazed to learn how much of this innate sense we use every day as we travel across town or around the world. Both a scientific and a human story, "Inner Navigation" contains a rich assortment of real-life insights and examples of the navigational challenges we all face, no matter where or how we live. It's a book that is as provocative to ponder as it is delightful to lose yourself in. Don't worry: Erik Jonsson will help you find your bearings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1156659 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
On a trip to Cologne Belgium in 1948, Jonsson left the train station before dawn and headed toward the Rhine. Jonsson was sure he was heading west, and even though he saw the sun rising over the river ahead of him, he continued to be "turned around" for days, thinking that west was east and vice versa. Similar tales of mis- and disorientation make up much of this chatty book. With dozens of examples, the author shows how we create cognitive maps a mental sense of how to navigate an area based on landmarks and explains why such maps can work only if we have both a good sense of direction ("direction frame") and sense of location ("dead reckoning system"). If either of these is faulty, he argues, then so is our cognitive map, and we'll remain misoriented no matter what we do. Like Jonsson watching the sunrise in the "west," we'll privilege our illusory maps over what we absolutely know is true. The book plays the same few notes again and again, flirting dangerously with tedium. Fortunately, many of Jonsson's stories are intriguing, especially those involving Saharan and arctic guides. That Jonsson's ideas are based solely on anecdotal evidence is bothersome, but he defends them convincingly, and one hopes that future experiments will bear them out.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
No matter how detailed a map may be, it omits some facets of the physical space it represents. When people enter such a space, their mind's eye fills in the omissions as they navigate, but nearly everyone (not just male motorists!) has had the experience of becoming lost in a mapped-out space, even a familiar one. With a lifelong interest in this type of bewilderment, Jonsson presents idiosyncratic anecdotes about getting lost. Inattention is certainly an element in such befuddlement, but Jonsson avers that more is involved. We possess a "cognitive map" that may not be precisely up-to-date with the actual physical space, which continually changes its appearance. We may also view the physical space from angles that may differ from the map in our minds, causing us to get turned around in familiar neighborhoods or unable to locate the car in the parking lot. Jonsson acquired his interest in these cognitive aspects of spatial sense while trekking through Scandinavian forests. An interesting, offbeat ramble. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Born in Sweden in 1922, Erik Jonsson grew up using the forest as his navigation school. He moved with his family to California in 1969. He lives in San Diego, California.

Customer Reviews

This book is an absolute gem.
I like to go on hikes and when I go alone I take small sized books with me to read at various way points on the trail. I bought this book because its basic idea seemed to reference some of the experiences I have had while on these hikes.

In the forward, written by noted cognitive scientist and Apple Fellow Donald Norman we find out that the author, Erik Jonsson is the kind of person who takes extension courses at the local college in order to better understand himself and the world he lives in. While taking such courses he meets Prof. Norman who encourages Jonsson to turn his essays into this book.

Jonsson begins with his personal experience while hiking or traveling. He relates that he creates cognitive maps based on feature in the environment, but more importantly he discusses confusion errors and how they create a sense of disorientation, only to be suddenly reversed when some new factor comes into account. This is something that I can relate to. I live in Toronto where "Lake" is "South", but when I visit downtown Chicago I intuitively use this rule and often get lost - unless I actively realize that Lake Michigan is to the North and consciously sort out left/right/east/west. Similarly on a loopback trail just this past weekend I experienced a sense of disorientation trying to get back to the trail head until I recognized a pair of trees as I approached them from the opposite direction and understood where I was in terms the the route and the last two minor trail crossings.

The book is rich in other examples. Jonsson looks at the literature and discussed the problems of navigating in the Sahara or of using the prevailing winds to find one's way in the Arctic. He even comes up with an interesting suggestion as to why animals and people tend to run in large circles rather than in a straight line. But perhaps the most fun example (for me) is the apparently common problem of navigating in San Francisco. If you come from some other coastal town one can use the smell of the sea to orient oneself - yet San Francisco is on a peninsual with the sea all around - a literally disorienting experience!

What is truly inspiring is the Eric Jonsson was born in 1922 and so would have been about 80 in 2002 when the book was published. We are (unfortunately) unlikely therefore to hear from him again. I find it uplifting that a man in his twilight years was able to contribute something significant to the advancement of science. All of us should be so fortunate.

I recommend this book for one's personal library. I've lent it out a couple of times and others have agreed that it contains some excellent insights. Should it ever be lost I would buy it again in an instant!

Should interest nonscientists as much as scientists
Erik Jonsson's lively discourse on the sense of direction comprising Inner Navigation, begins with several stories from personal and colleague experience to demonstrate the idea of cognitive maps, then moves into the science realm to explain how such 'maps' work. How humans and animals get lost, navigate, and recover from being lost makes for an intriguing discussion which should interest nonscientists as much as scientists.